María Gabriela de Faría’s Angela Spicer, a.k.a. The Engineer, was one of Lex Luthor’s two main sources of muscle (and maybe a romantic interest) during the events of Superman. The nanotechnology in her body made her a formidable threat to David Corenswet’s Man of Steel in the 2025 movie release. As it turns out, de Faria came close to working with writer and director James Gunn earlier through his previous DC movie, The Suicide Squad. Unfortunately, a language barrier issue stopped that from happening.
During her appearance on Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, María Gabriela de Faría recalled to the title host, who played Lex Luthor in the TV series Smallville, how she’d recently told Gunn that she was so “starstruck” by him during her The Suicide Squad audition that she bombed it. The actress said “it was so sad,” then continued:
So I had just gotten to the US, and I learned English as an adult, and my English at that time wasn't great. I was faking it. So I got there and he's like, ‘I love everything you've done in your self tapes. She's a brat, so play her like that.’ And I'm like, ‘You got it.’ I didn't know what a brat was and I didn't ask because… I didn't want him to think that I couldn't speak English. So I didn't ask and I didn't do what he wanted me to do. And I could see it in his face, like, ‘Thank you so much for coming. That was great. Thank you. Bye.’ And I got in my car and Googled ‘brat’ and it was not what I did.
I can understand why María Gabriela de Faría didn’t bring up how her English wasn’t the best at the time, as she feared it may sabotage her chances of joining The Suicide Squad. Unfortunately, her misunderstanding of what a “brat” cost her this mysterious role. Looking over the cast of the 2021 DC movie, it’s unclear who de Faría would have portrayed if she’d nailed her audition, as I wouldn’t describe Ratcatcher 2, played by Daniela Melchior, as a brat.
In any case, it’s fortunate that the Superman audition worked out much better for María Gabriela de Faría, although that wasn’t without its own challenges. Earlier in the interview, the actress explained how she’d been hit hard by losing an audition for the Paramount+ subscription-exclusive series Landman, which left her “depressed.” So when the opportunity to try out for The Engineer came along (though the character wasn’t identified in the “dummy slides” she received), she was convinced she wouldn’t get the role because of what happened with the Taylor Sheridan-created series.
Enter de Faría’s husband, Christian McGaffney, who said, “Lady, wipe off your tears, get dressed, and we're going to self tape this.” So they did just that, with de Faría acting out the scene where The Engineer connected to the Fortress of Solitude’s computer. James Gunn ultimately decided she was the best fit for the role, so she was brought aboard for Superman and got to share screen time with David Corenswet, Nicholas Hoult and Sara Sampaio, among others.
When we left off with Angela Spicer in Superman, she’d been knocked unconscious, and her whereabouts after the rift in Metropolis was closed weren’t addressed. Fortunately for fans of the character, we haven’t seen the last of her, as María Gabriela de Faría will reprise The Engineer in the upcoming DC movie Man of Tomorrow, which hits theaters on July 9, 2027.
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